Tag Archives: diversity

Today we’re happy to announce that we’re opening up a scholarship application for the 2015 Quantified Self Europe Conference. Since our first conference in 2011 our aim has been to foster an inclusive environment, and with the help and guidance from many attendees we’ve benefited greatly from exposing ourselves to the wide range of ideas about what it means to get “personal meaning from personal data.”

In the last few years we’ve listened to our community, in particular our friends Amelia Greenhall, Maggie Delano, and Beau Gunderson, regarding how we can best make our events meaningful and open for all. In that time we’ve published our anti-harrassment policy for our conferences and implemented a code of conduct designed to make our meetups a more welcoming place. But, we know that publishing codes and policies is only one piece of a bigger effort to make sure that our Quantified Self community continues to grow and welcome those who are typically left on the fringes of technology-related events and conferences. Earlier this year we opened up our first scholarship application for the QS15 Conference and Exposition. We were amazed to receive interest from individuals all over the world who wanted to come learn, participate, and be a part of our community. Due to the generosity of our sponsors and our Friends of QS we were able to welcome over a dozen scholarship attendees, many of whom took part in shaping the program and adding their unique voices to the multi-day event. It was so great to see, and we’re excited to do it again.

The 2015 Quantified Self Europe Conference will be held in Amsterdam on September 18th and 19th at the intimate Casa 400 Hotel. If you identify with a group that has been typically underrepresented and would like to attend the 2015 Quantified Self Europe Conference and Exposition we want to hear from you. We’ve made a simple application form for you to fill out so you can tell us a little about yourself. We’ll be reviewing applications as they come in. Because the conference is attendee-drive we place an emphasis on those would like to contribute to the program. As you fill out the application, please be as descriptive as possible so we can best understand why you’d like to attend and how you might be able to contribute.

Today we’re happy to announce that we’re opening up a scholarship application for the QS15 Conference and Exposition. Since our first conference in 2011 our aim has been to foster an inclusive environment, and with the help and guidance from many attendees we’ve benefited greatly from exposing ourselves to the wide range of ideas about what it means to get “personal meaning from personal data.”

Last year, thanks to the leadership of our own longtime friend and collaborator, Amelia Greenhall, we published our first anti-harassment policy for the 2013 QS Global Conference. We leaned heavily on the great work of the Ada Initiative to make sure that our event attendees were supported and protected. We were further inspired by QS Boston and QSXX Boston organizer, Maggie Delano, to implement a code of conduct in order to make sure that our meetups are a welcoming place where community members can come together and safely share and learn from each other.

Opening up this scholarship application is an continuation of these ongoing efforts to support diversity and openness. We’re taking cues from other exemplary events such as Portland’s XOXO Conference & Festival and listening to thoughtful leaders in our community. QS15 is not your typical tech-focused event, our conferences never have been. They’re special because they’re attendee-driven. The community guides the program by sharing their self-tracking experiences and facilitating discussions on a wide range of topics. It makes sense to turn our beliefs on inclusion and diversity into action by welcoming and supporting those who have typically been underrepresented in our events and the broader techno-culture. These efforts also reflect our mission to support access. We’re currently in the early stages of a new effort to encourage and communicate about the importance of personal data access (see our QS Access App here). But access doesn’t have to stop at being able to download a CSV file. Access to our community of leaders, exemplary users, toolmakers, and researchers matters too.

If you identify with a group that has been underrepresented and would like to attend the QS15 Conference and Exposition we want to hear from you. We’ve made a simple application form for you to fill out so you can tell us a little about yourself. We’ll be reviewing applications as they come in. Because the conference is attendee-drive we place an emphasis on those would like to contribute to the program. We run our conferences on a shoestring, but this year we are going to do what we can to provide both registration and travel grants in this program.

Apply for a Diversity and Inclusion Scholarship

Thank you to all those that applied. We are currently unable to offer any additional scholarships to the QS15 Conference at this time.

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Diversity of Various Tech Companies By the Numbers by Nick Heer. Recently Apple released data about the diversity of their employee workforce. This marked the last major tech company to publish data about diversity. In this short post Nick takes that data and shows how it compares to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Interested in more than just the big six listed here? Check out this great site for more tech company diversity data (Hat tip to Mark Allen for finding that link!)

Intel Explores Wearables for Parkinson’s Research by Christina Farr, Reuters. Intel is in the news lately based on their interest in developing and using their technological prowess for qs-related activities. In this post/press release, they describe how they’re partnering with the Michael J. Fox Foundation to explore how they can use wearable devices to track and better understand patients with Parkinson’s Disease. It appears they’re also working to get their headphone heart rate tracking technology out to market.

Spying on Myself by Richard J. Anderson. I’m always interested in how people talk to themselves about self-tracking. This short essay describes the tools that Richard uses and why he continues or discontinues using them. His follow up is also a must read.

Dexcom Mac Dance by Kerri Sparling. You know we’re fascinated by the techniques and tools developed and refined by the the diabetes community. In this short post, Kerri highlights the work of Brian Bosh, who developed a Chrome extension to access and download data from Dexcom continuous glucose monitors on a Mac. (Bonus link: Listen to Chris Snider’s great podcast episode where he talks to John Costik, one of the originators of the CGM in the Cloud/Nightscout project.)

Show&TellThe Three-Year Long Time Tracking Experiment by Lighton Phiri. Lighton is a graduate student at the University of Capetown. In 2011 he became curious about how he was spending his time. After installing a time-tracking tool on his various computers, he started gathering data. Recently, after 3 years of tracking, he downloaded and analyzed his data. Read this excellent post to find out what he learned.

QS Bits and Bobs by Adam Johnson. Adam gave talk at a recent QS Oxford Meetup about his lifelogging and self-tracking, his custom tools for importing data to his calendar, and what he’s learned from his experiences. Make sure to also check out the neat tool he’s developed to log events to Google Calendar.

Visualizations

FuelBand Fibers by Variable. A design team was given Nike FuelBand data from seven different runners and created this interesting visualization of their daily activity.

In the City that We Love by Brian Wilt/Jawbone. The data science team at Jawbone continues to impress with their production of meaningful and interesting data visualizations based on data from UP users. In this post and corresponding visualizations they explore the daily patterns of people from around the world. Make sure to read the technical notes!

Want to receive the weekly What We Are Reading posts in your inbox? We’ve set up a simple newsletter just for you. Click here to subscribe. Do you have a self-tracking story, visualization, or interesting link you want to share? Submit it now!

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We recently started a program to invite QS Toolmakers to contribute directly to funding our events. We call this program Friends of QS. If you would like to participate we invite you email us to learn more.